


Confessions of a Crow

by lessiehanamoray



Category: Persona 5, Persona: Trinity Soul
Genre: Body Horror, Child Experimentation, Gen, GoroBigBang2020, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Game(s), Spoilers, Torture, minor shuake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29045394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lessiehanamoray/pseuds/lessiehanamoray
Summary: "I still don't know if I was right, but I made my choice." After nearly two years without a word Goro Akechi suddenly appears, ready to explain how he became a Persona user and what set him on the path to working with Shido.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25
Collections: Goro Big Bang 2020





	Confessions of a Crow

**Author's Note:**

> In case you missed the tags: there is death and violence involving underaged characters, not to mention discussions of child neglect and abandonment. That said, I ultimately enjoyed writing this and hope you enjoy.

**NOW**

“Joker. This is Crow. Meet me at the Niijima home tomorrow night. Just you, your cat (if you must), and the sisters. I have something to discuss.”

Akira looked up at Makoto. She had received a similar message, had texted the Phantom Thieves the moment she read it. Everyone had agreed they should probably respond. Still, it had been a fight to stop the other thieves from coming.

They were all at a family restaurant not far away in case either Makoto or Akira felt the need to call them in.

Sae leaned back in a chair at the dining table, fingers tapping irritably against her arm.

A knock on the door.

Akira practically flew across the room. The bell rang.

“Hello?” The voice sounded tinny through the small speaker, but Akira knew it in an instant.

He flung open the door, Makoto and Morgana just behind him.

Goro Akechi stared at him. His hair was longer now, his eyes more brown than red, and his coat didn’t look as nice as the one he had worn in Maruki’s reality, but it was definitely Akechi.

He smiled, that same small smile he had used so often when spending time with Akira as the detective prince.

“I see you got my message.”

“To be quite honest,” responded Makoto, “we were all quite relieved.”

Akechi looked to Makoto. “I am...glad to hear that.”

“We didn’t know what happened to you,” Morgana reminded him. “Nearly two years wondering if you were alive or dead. Kind of creepy not knowing.”

The smile widened, but Akechi’s eyes turned cold. “Well, I’m glad I could assuage your worries. May I come in?”

His voice sounded sharp now.

“I worried about you,” whispered Akira.

Sae’s voice cut through their little reunion. “You said you have a confession to give.”

Akira and Makoto let Akechi inside.

“You bailed on your part of bringing Shido down.”

Akechi moved toward the table. Makoto headed for the kitchen to make tea. Akira decided to stay with Akechi.

“To a point,” admitted Akechi. He sat down near Sae. “To be quite honest, it wasn’t safe for me to come forward. It still isn’t. That’s why I chose to come to you personally.”

“Why isn’t it safe?” whispered Akira with some concern. 

“There are some names which, even in his changed state, Shido neglected to mention. Or, perhaps worse, which never made it out publicly even if he did. And government agencies beyond his influence. I fear a public appearance would only make matters much, much worse for me.” He looked up to Sae. “And I do not simply refer to prison time or capital punishment.”

Makoto walked over with a tray of cups and a teapot.

“So you’ve decided to talk to me?” Sae queried.

Akechi nodded. “I need to confess. Not just my crimes. You’re well aware of the bulk of that, but everything. I have debated with myself for some time now. Who do I tell? Where do I start? Should I start with when I first approached Shido, or is it that too far along? Should I connect my tale to events I only now am aware of, or should I leave it to my side of the story?”

Sae stared at him with icy eyes. “Honesty. That’s all I want from you, Goro Akechi. For once in our time together, I want you to be honest with me.”

“Understood. Then I shall tell my story with the most honesty I can muster.” He looked across everyone in the room, even Morgana.

“I suppose, I should start with my first true memory of what we choose to call the metaverse.”

**THEN**

January 31st, 2010. You would think with everything that happened that year, it wouldn't stand out so much. Mother and I had been living in Ayanagi City for close to two months, having arrived just before the New Year. I still wasn't used to the snow. It never stuck around for very long, but fell constantly.

I woke up around midnight, most likely to the sound of my mother returning home from work.

Green light bathed the world. A cold breeze wafted in from the door, and when I turned to look, I saw the door ajar; a standing coffin propping it open. Blood seeped out from the rim, pooling around one of my mother's shoes.

I crawled out from under our shabby kotatsu. For a moment, I just stared at the coffin. I don't really know what I felt. Perhaps I had experienced such things before and for some reason I simply didn't remember any of them until that night.

I didn't panic. I felt nervous, of course, but not fearful. I moved around the coffin in the doorway and stepped outside.

Never before had the moon looked so huge. It almost felt like you could touch it and it cast a green light over everything. Red snow fell from the sky.

I peered over the railing, gazing up at that monstrous moon.

I don't remember why, I’m not sure I ever did, but I cried. I sat on the walkway, my legs dangling over the edge, and felt like the entire world pressed down upon me. I clutched the rail so tight, that when it all passed my mother had to pry my hands off the cold metal.

There was noise beneath me, like the squelching you get when emptying the last drops of shampoo from a bottle.

At some point, something cold and wet touched my feet. Perhaps it was just the melting snow.

I don't know how long it lasted. Time felt still. The sky returned to normal. The walkway lights illuminated the world in cheap fluorescents.

I heard a sound behind me, followed by a startled little shout.

My mother called out, "Goro, where are you?" A moment later, she sighed in relief.

She asked how I got past her. I looked up at her. She asked why I was crying.

I told her I didn't know. I don’t think I’ll ever know.

She knelt down on the cold pavement and wrapped me in a warm hug. She told me I was shaking. Asked how long I had been out.

She warmed my hands. Carried me inside. Without a word, she heated some water for the both of us.

I told her what I had seen, but she got that look on her face. That worried look she always gave me when I started speaking nonsense.

Normally I would just shut up, but for some reason I had to tell her.

To her credit, she listened. She always accepted, always understood, that no matter how nonsensical it might seem to her, these experiences were very real to me. She'd give that look. She'd worry. She'd knit her brows and clutch her cracked mug.

But she'd listen. She'd let me say my piece, and she’d comforted me.

I cried all night. In the morning, you could see streaks of deep red down my cheeks and off my chin.

I never experienced anything quite like that again, but every time I return to that night in my memories, every time I analyze it, every time I think back to how it looked and how it felt, every time I compare it to my experiences of Mementos, and of that false reality.

Every time, I realize it felt the same. The Metaverse transplanted over reality.

**NOW**

Goro Akechi released a deep sigh.

“I learned later that this phenomenon was called the Dark Hour, or sometimes the Shadow Hour. I learned that January 31st, 2010 was the last time it ever happened on a large scale.” He looked over to Akira and then Makoto. “A group of Persona users stopped some great cataclysm that night and in doing so, gave up their access to the Metaverse.”

“Other Persona users?” whispered Makoto.

“Of course. Did you really think we were the only ones?”

Morgana and Akira exchanged glances.

“I see.” Akechi sighed once more. “Because no one else ever stepped up, you assumed it was just us. I suppose that makes some sense, but did it never occur to what prompted the research into Cognitive Psience?”

“This experience caused people to research the phenomenon?” reasoned Sae.

Akechi shook his head. “You really don’t…” He shook his head. “I had assumed that in the process of your investigation...especially with Futaba involved.”

“What do you know?”

“Both Wakaba Ishiki and Takuto Maruki were granted government funds for a supposedly unproven science. They even used that excuse to cut Maruki’s funding after Ishiki’s death. Didn’t that ever seem strange to you?” Akechi looked over the others in the room. “No government spends that kind of money without expecting results.”

“It wasn’t entirely new,” murmured Makoto. Akira nodded his agreement to her assessment. 

“My understanding is that by the event of 2010, such research had progressed for over a decade already.”

Everyone’s eyes widened noticeably.

“Disappointing. I had hoped you would have realized this by now. I don’t know the details, but I believe companies carried out much of the initial research. There was at least one attempt which involved harnessing shadows for energy, and another which centered on the creation of a perfect world.”

“Well that sounds familiar,” mewed Morgana.

“For myself, I’m more familiar with Persona research than Cognitive Psience.”

Akira’s head shot up to attention. “Persona research?” 

“Indeed. Sae, in your investigation have you encountered the name Keisuke Komatsubara? Or perhaps Dr. Mareya Kujou?”

“Neither name sounds familiar.”

“You have not been very thorough, have you? Nevertheless, I assume the core question you wish me to answer at this juncture is how I awakened to my Persona.”

Sae remained passive, but the three Phantom Thieves leaned in closer.

He smiled at them, seemingly invigorated by their open curiosity.

“Then allow me to start by warning you that my awakening was very different from the ones described by the Phantom Thieves. And that my Persona, that Loki, is…” he trailed off.

A moment later Akechi shook his head as though to clear it. 

“You’ll understand. Not just how Loki is different, but how the situation around my awakening was...abnormal” Akechi closed his eyes. “Let us start with the seed.”

**THEN**

It started at an orphanage near Ayanagi City. I don’t remember what it was called, just that it specialized in troublesome children. 

Not long after my mother’s death, a great tragedy struck Ayanagi City. It generated a massive number of Apathy Syndrome cases. Much like psychotic breakdowns, most people simply ceased to function. Train operators ran through stops. Vehicles kept going with no one paying any mind. The slew of accidents left many children orphaned and many more with parents incapable of caring for them. This left many homes overrun and eager to outsource their more problematic patients.

I was eleven years old when I arrived. Twelve when I left.

Unlike most orphanages, this one was privately owned. The owner was supposedly a brilliant neurosurgeon and psychologist by the name of Dr. Mareya Kujou. A kind philanthropist willing to use his training to help with the influx of orphaned children.

I arrived after many of the children, and his orphanage held a surprising amount of space. It was a more traditional building than most, with a proper play yard and a grand view of the bay far below. Many of the children already lived there when he bought the building.

Dr. Kujou kept a small staff for an orphanage, but because of his constant presence most of the children thought of him as a father-figure. Some of the older children would tell stories of awful food, or of punishments which consisted of being forced to sit out in the snow for hours. All of that before Dr. Kujou's miraculous arrival.

He actively chose to act in the role of counselor, and got to know me well. At least, as well as I ever let anyone. Still, he was one of those people you could tell learned more from what you told him than you intended.

After about a month, he told me he had a way to help. He said he could make me strong, fill my broken heart. Ensure I was never alone again.

How could anyone say no to that? Not like I had a choice. Legally speaking, he could do damn near whatever he pleased.

I was nervous. Unsure. He told me all the children at the orphanage did this. I wondered if it had to do something with the way some children suddenly disappeared. We had always been told they were adopted, but no one ever came to the grounds to visit anyone.

Every child at this orphanage was really and truly an orphan. No parents. No extended family who cared.

No one to notice when we disappeared, or if our behavior suddenly shifted.

Dr. Kujou called us his flowerbed, and he planted seeds in each of us.

He placed me in a pod. Hooked me up to some strange apparatus with tubes and wire hanging everywhere, like something you might see in a film about a mad scientist. And he put something inside of me without ever once opening me up. It felt like someone had clogged up my heart.

After the procedure, he told me I would feel a great pressure inside of me in a few days. That it would hurt, but that when it was over, I would never be empty again.

That never happened. The pressure from the initial procedure faded quickly, and nothing else rose to take its place. After two weeks, he tested me for something, to see what had happened to the seed.

It wasn't there.

It must have been something in his tone. Or perhaps his eyes gave him away, but I knew. I was no longer a cherished member of his family. I was a medical curiosity. A freak of nature.

I had to run. Had to escape before the only way for him to learn more was to cut me open.

I chose to run at night. I wanted to catch the first train across the mountains to Tokyo. To get far away before he even noticed I had left.

It was probably a terrible idea. The only reason I chose Tokyo was because I knew my father lived there. That he was part of the Diet. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with me before, I knew that, but I wanted to change my fate.

I actually thought things couldn't get worse.

The weird feeling in the pit of my stomach since my arrival had transformed into a certainty that the children who left were actually dead. And that I would be next.

I still don't know if I was right, but I made my choice.

Somehow, every choice I make always seems to put me in a worse place than the one I left. No matter how reasoned or how terrible the starting line.

I gathered my things, few as they were. I put on my heaviest clothes. I grabbed the money I had slowly been stealing from the staff. Spare change mostly, but there were some bills. I had checked. It was enough. Barely, but enough. If I could get on the train without spending any other money, I could make it.

It was one of those black nights. At least, that's how I remember it. No moon. Clouds covering the stars. A flurry of snow.

I clambered up the fence and made my way down the mountain road.

I'm not sure how far I had really gone when it happened. Far enough not to see the orphanage anymore, but on a mountain, what does that matter?

A light shone in front of me, an eerie glow that's still hard to describe. And in the middle of it sat Dr. Kujou. He leaned back in his wheelchair, a smug grin on his face.

It looked blurry.

He demanded to know what I thought I was doing.

I told him I was leaving, and that I didn't intend to let him stop me.

His eyes glowed, and he changed.Turned into a ghost with two pairs of eyes on each of its three faces. They rose from where his face had been.

A monster hovered before me, and I couldn’t see Dr. Kujou ahead.

It flew over the snow-covered ground. I fell back.

Two swords cut through the air where I had stood before.

I heard Dr. Dr. Kujou tell me I was a failure. Not only an empty vessel, but without a vessel at all.

That I didn’t have a vessel to fill.

That I didn't have a soul.

Thorny vines wrapped around my legs. The creature spawned from Dr. Kujou, the Persona, readied another attack with its swords.

My eyes focused only on those horrible blades. I must have opened my mouth to scream. To be honest, I don't really remember what I was thinking, or trying to accomplish.

What I do know is this: when presented with the question of whether to flee or to fight, I always choose to fight. Ever since I was born, I have chosen to fight.

Whether I consciously choose it or not doesn't really matter.

Something pushed out from inside of me. Like when you’re at the dentist and swear your mouth is as wide as it goes, and yet somehow you need to open it wider. Except, it was all of me. Something pushed out of my throat. Out of my mouth. And out of my eyes.

I couldn't see anymore, just pulses of black and white stripes across my vision.

I heard the sound of the swords grinding across something, like they had hit stone or metal.

I couldn't see, and I couldn't move. I sat up as best I could, despite this thing trying to crawl out my throat and out my eyes.

Even to those of you who have seen Loki, who have seen what my Persona can do, I’m not sure I can properly describe it. Even with a point of reference, the Loki I summoned that night was very, very different. 

I felt the thorns tear away from my legs. I heard Dr. Kujou scream.

I stared up at the sky with no comprehension of what had just occurred.

Ahead of me, Dr. Kujou’s Persona rose from the ground shakily.

Something enveloped me, big and strong. And hungry.

I had never felt so hungry in my life.

And my eyes. They burned.

I saw one of those faces in a hand, or a hand-like thing. I looked up at the beast which enveloped me.

It was black and white, like a zebra's stripes, if those stripes shifted randomly across its body. And it changed constantly. With one head, it bit into the one it held. And then that head appeared on its body, only to vanish again a moment later. Only to reappear somewhere else.

I don't know what happened to Dr.Kujo's persona. I just know that a moment later I was high above the ground, something carrying me by the collar.

I ultimately didn't take the train from Ayanagi City, but rather from a city a prefecture over. I don't even remember the name, but it was further down the route and the ticket was cheaper.

[ ](https://twitter.com/kb_phantom/status/1354865027694604290?s=20)

**NOW**

“Wait,” interjected Morgana. “You flew?”

Goro Akechi nodded.

“In reality?”

He nodded again.

Makoto and Akira exchanged confused glances while Morgana continued. “Is that even possible?”

“Apparently,” replied Akira quickly.

Akechi smiled at him. 

Sae leaned back in her seat. “You’re telling us that you found yourself at an orphanage which conducted research on children?”

“Correct.”

“What did you mean by seed?” inquired Makoto.

Akechi shrugged. “Just that that’s what Dr. Kujou called it. I don’t know how he made them, but the purpose was to create a sort of artificial persona within the test subject. By preference, a usable one rather than one which killed the host.”

“Killed the host?” Sae looked over to Makoto, brows knitted in concern.

“Loki has attempted to end my life on several occasions,” added Akechi.

“So this seed allowed you to summon your Persona?” inquired Makoto.

“No. If that were true, then Dr. Kujou would have understood what was happening to me. I think that Loki already existed inside of me, hidden away from even Dr. Kujou’s tech. The seed merely provided a quick meal.”

“Meal?” asked Akira.

“Yes. Loki ate the seed, causing it to appear as though it had never taken in the first place.”

“Ate the seed?” reiterated Makoto.

Another nod. 

The three Phantom Thieves exchanged glances. Sae leaned back in her seat.

“And thus you arrived in Tokyo.”

“Indeed. Mostly broke, and with my only family a wealthy politician who I knew wanted nothing to do with me.”

**THEN**

You don't need to hear the details of my early life in Tokyo. It was a very cold, and wet, winter. One of those winters that kills people. Since all the dead were poor and homeless, no one cared.

This applied to me as well. I needed to avoid the police and I needed shelter.

If the weather hadn't been so atrocious, and if I had never been so desperate, maybe I wouldn’t have fallen into his trap.

Dr. Hanzou Kuroda. Butcher. The underworld’s go-to source for everything medical; from plastic surgery, to extreme body modification, and all the way through to organ harvesting.

Unsurprisingly, he worked with Shido. Who better to disappear a body than a man who sees every cadaver as a series of sales? Need a transplant? No problem. Want to keep your dead lover's dick for your own pleasure? Taxidermy can do wonders. Just want to try a new meat? He's got some extra pieces for you.

You should know the name, Sae. Shido never mentioned him in his confessions, but if you’ve dug up my paperwork, then you’ve seen it before.

My legal guardian: Hanzou Kuroda.

He already performed body modification. Why not mental modification as well? It’s no surprise he jumped aboard Cognitive Psience research. Body modification was only the beginning. He realized the potential of Cognitive Psience immediately. Recognized that you could use it to alter people drastically. And he knew about Persona.

As for the scientist in charge of the research; who wouldn't wish to work with such an esteemed doctor? Especially one who could provide research subjects? His reputation may be questionable, but his skill is undeniable.

Not just medically, but manipulatively as well.

He heard about me from one of my regulars. I’m not sure what rumors he spread to ensure he received such information, but he approached me as a client. A simple way to ensure I didn’t run.

I can still hear it. The cadence of his walk. People who walk with canes produce a very distinct sound. 

I don't have many nightmares, but they almost always involve that same steady cadence.

Step. Soft-step. Thud. Step. Soft-step. Thud. To be honest, the sound always makes me jump until I listen and realize it's not his cadence. His particular rhythm. 

I hate Shido, but I never feared him. Even when he threatened me. Even when he hurt me. I never feared him.

This might simply be hindsight, memories warped by future-knowledge, but Dr. Kuroda scared me the moment I saw him.

He's not intrinsically imposing. Pretty average height. Short black hair, sometimes slicked back. A little more broad-shouldered than normal perhaps, but not so much you particularly notice when he stands on his own. When he's out and about, he dresses like any other salaryman. If someone has a good feel for suits, they might notice that it's higher quality than usual. Or that his watch is extremely expensive and durable. A person might even eventually notice the signs of piercings, though he rarely shows them off.

Everyone notices the cane. He has a few, but all of them feature predators on the handle. They are extremely well-made, custom even, and very weighty. He does actually have a limp, but those canes also serve as weapons. I've been smacked more than once by them and can verify - I'd rather get hit over the head with a baseball bat.

He approached me beside one of my regulars, who introduced him as an extremely wealthy client. Not just that, but one who wanted me for the whole night and into the morning. 

I didn’t agree immediately. He made me nervous, and so I pushed the price as high as I could imagine.

And he never dropped the facade. He could pay anything, and he would. Odd as it was, how could a starving street urchin not agree to that?

He took me to one of his apartments. Drew a warm bath. Prepared a good meal. Offered a warm bed.

It was the first time someone had treated me so kindly upon hiring me. The first time someone made sure I was taken care of as well. And yet, he showed no interest in the service for which he had paid me for. That roused my suspicions a little, but I simply assumed he would wake me later in the night.

He eventually did, but I’m not sure it was the same night. Knowing him as I do now, I’m confident he drugged me while I ate and transported me as I slept.

I woke not on a bed, but strapped down to an operating table. I hurt everywhere, and he leaned over me.

He said something about brain activity. Proceeded to say I matched his expectations.

And then he pulled out my records. All of them. My name. My mother's name. Blood type. Date of birth. He knew I'd run from an orphanage. Knew what orphanage. Saw all the notes about my mental state. About my hyperactivity and hallucinations.

He even had notes from school. He knew what grade I had last attended. How well I had done. How often I had received punishment for supposedly bullying other children.

And he looked so smug reading it back to me.

I asked him why he cared.

He told me.

**NOW**

Akechi leaned forward in his seat. “You have to understand. I need you, all of you, to realize just how deep it went. Shido's grand conspiracy?”

He glanced around at all of them.

“It's nothing on what Dr. Kujou intended. Nothing on what Dr. Kuroda envisioned. Mental shutdowns? Psychotic breaks? Child's play to all of them.”

Akechi leaned back once more, wrapping a hand around his teacup. “Dr. Kuroda asked me about my Persona. It marked the first time I had heard that word properly spoken, but I knew immediately what he meant.”

“He asked if I still had it. I told him I didn't know.”

Akechi sighed and brought his tea to his lips. The small sip facilitated a pause, one he seemed to need in order to gather his thoughts.

“He told me I did. He told me that once I fully recovered from his initial examination that he'd take me to a proper facility. One where my abilities could be researched in full. That I’d spend quite a bit of time there.”

“The Department of Supernatural Individuality.”

He glanced around the table. No one seemed to recognize the name.

With a disappointed sigh, Akechi continued, “It didn’t look like much from the outside, not like I saw its exterior more than once or twice. It was a renovated mental hospital, repurposed for research. It made use of the building’s original design to house and study patients.

“I’m sure the locals knew it was some sort of government facility, and that many of the workers lived nearby.”

“I met Dr. Kuroda in Roppongi. Judging by the time it took to arrive at the facility by car, they weren’t very close. I never did learn the exact location, though I’m sure you could ask Mr. Sakura.”

"Why would Sojiro Sakura know this facility’s location?" Sae interjected.

Goro jumped, head snapping up to look at her. His brown eyes looked like they had fallen back in his skull, more distant than usual.

"Akechi?" Akira asked quietly. "Goro?"

Akechi turned to look at him.

"Just tell us what you can.”

"I saw Mr. Sakura there on several occasions,” explained Goro. “He often waited outside of Dr. Ishiki's office."

"Dr. Ishiki?" pressed Makoto. Her voice shuddered slightly, like she felt unsure if she'd heard correctly.

"Dr. Wakaba Ishiki," verified Akechi. "She was one of the doctors in charge of the facility. Undoubtedly strongest in theory and planning, she left much of the decisions involved in human patients to Dr. Kuroda."

"So you weren't the only one," muttered Makoto.

"Of course not. One is a rather horrible sample size."

"Did you interact with other patients?"

If you had asked any of the four individuals looking at Goro Akechi at the moment about the expression which crossed his face you would have received three different answers.

Makoto Niijima noted the odd tilt of his head the most. The way he both looked up at all of them and away all at once.

Her older sister noticed the immediate tension in Goro Akechi's body. She could almost feel the adrenaline rushing through him. His shoulders stiffened. His jaw tightened. His hands, until now loosely resting on the table, clenched into fists.

Morgana noticed the insanity. He had never trusted Goro Akechi. Had never liked him. Instead, he had learned to read him. Makoto's question had put him on edge, causing a flicker of red rage in his brown eyes.

Akira had also learned to read Goro Akechi, but his perspective was far kinder than Morgana's. Morgana saw the rage and insanity. Akira saw the deep, deep sorrow. Staring into Goro Akechi's eyes at that moment felt like staring down a sinkhole.

"Not...particularly."

None of them missed the strain in his voice. 

“I only ever interacted with a few... select individuals.” 

He took a deep breath, steadying himself.

**THEN**

I didn't see anyone else when I first arrived. Even the entrance stood empty. I realized later that Dr. Kuroda held enough sway to order everyone out of the building before our arrival. I'm not sure if such behavior was normal when he brought someone in, or if he had singled my arrival out.

Whatever the case, he led me through fluorescent hallways which smelled strongly of alcoholic cleaner and up old wooden stairs.

He grasped my left hand in an iron grasp.

Stop. Soft-step. Thud.

We walked at his pace. Walked to his rhythm.

Stop. Soft-step. Thud.

I know I make him sound slow, but Dr. Hanzou Kuroda always moves in measured strides. Despite the odd cadence, he almost marches at a military speed.

It's not hard to keep up with him, but he practically drug me up those stairs.

I thought the stairs and halls felt oddly bare. Even in hospitals you might expect some information signs or generic paintings. These walls were just white. Only the occasional door and the cadence of Dr. Kuroda's cane marked our movement.

Eventually, the style of the door changed. No longer sliding hospital doors, they now more closely resembled cell doors. They were thick, with hinges on the hallway side. They all appeared opaque, but I would learn later they were all one-way mirrors controlled from a monitor room.

I remember the slight thunk as Dr. Kuroda set his cane against the wall. He swung open the door at the end of the hall.

Honestly, I had lived in apartments with my mother that were no bigger. I'd guess the room was about the size of three tatami mats. Padding covered the room and a skylight allowed natural light to illuminate the space during the day. A simple futon rested in the middle of the floor with a thick duvet over it and a single pillow.

Instead of the usual fluorescent light of the hospital, the light in this room felt softer.

I've seen beds the size of that room.

A simple curtain, hung along a rail on the wall, provided some privacy for a tiny shower and toilet. Though, I did later discover a camera in that space, as well as one in the main room. Between the glass in the door and the two cameras, doctors could check in on you at any time. No matter your activity.

Dr. Kuroda grabbed his cane once more and with a step, soft-step, thud led me inside.

I stared up at the tall ceiling.

"Welcome home." After our first meeting, he always spoke in a sickly sweet tone to me. Even after I started working with Shido.

I didn't really understand what he meant though. I couldn't think of this as home.

"I told you I'd bring you here, didn't I?"

"The Department of Supernatural Individuality," I recited. “Not home."

He leaned down, keeping his balance with his cane. "Then what is home?"

"I-I don't have a home."

"Well, now you do."

He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him.

"This is your home now, Goro. I've adopted you and sent you here."

I...I can't really describe just how awful those words felt. Just repeating them sends a shiver down my spine and freezes my feet to the ground.

So, of course, I did what I always do when I'm scared. I pushed away from him.

Not like it worked. He just chuckled and properly grabbed my shoulder.

And then he said...He said he looked forward to working with…

I can’t believe it still bothers me, but when he said it, when he declared me his son...I was too stunned and disgusted to even move. I didn’t even register when he removed his hand from my shoulder. Or even the soft thud of his cane on the floor.

Not until the door closed and the lights dimmed.

I stared up at the skylight.

I had come to Tokyo to change my fate. Instead, I had stepped right back into the same muck I had fled.

**NOW**

Goro stared down at his clenched fists. 

Makoto Niijima bit her bottom lip, shaking slightly.

“Let me make sure I understand. This man, this Doctor Kuroda, he adopted you? And then sent you to a government lab for experimentation?”

Goro nodded slightly.

Sae tried to catch his eye. “It seems the title ‘son’ bothered you more than a little, even amid your other troubles.”

"A legal guardian and a parent are different things. When you change facilities you change guardians. They come and go. When someone declares you truly their child though, it implies they intend to stay. At least for a while.”

"I see." Makoto tapped a finger to her cheek. "So the reason him calling you 'son' hurt so much was because it represented a long-term relationship? Something you clearly did not want."

"It meant he could do whatever he wanted to with me. It meant that everything I went through was suddenly legal and acceptable. I'd heard from other children the homes they had been pulled from, and what they expected to return to." Goro looked directly at Sae then. "You know perfectly well how hard it actually is to separate a child from their legal guardian, and how much worse it becomes when they're the biological parent."

"Well, that particular issue wouldn't have mattered at least."

"No. But given my biological father, I’m sure you can understand why I felt very thoroughly shoved between a rock and a hard place. And, frankly, at least Dr. Kuroda saw value in my survival.”

“My happiness on the other hand, was clearly of no concern to him and only mattered insomuch as it pertained to my sanity.”

**THEN**

They kept me isolated. I don't know for how long, but I only interacted with the general staff minimally. Dr. Kuroda usually came to get me. He set up the experiments. He placed me in the devices designed to view my brain, to see what fired with what images, what stories, what everything.

He had done some of this to me before arriving. I think, just enough to know I had the potential. Just enough to verify I was who he thought.

It is during that time that I met Dr. Ishiki. She kept her distance from the actual experiments, instead focusing her attention on the data it produced. Still, we were introduced fairly early, during a physical. One Dr. Kuroda oversaw.

The first thing I ever heard her say was just how odd it was for him to oversee a physical exam himself.

He had already poked and prodded me so much I didn't even think about it. Honestly, even now I wouldn’t. He was so tactile that he'd touch my head to indicate a location from the brain scans. It just felt normal.

A bad normal I suppose, but normal nonetheless.

He informed her that it simply felt right as he was my legal guardian.

Perhaps the most telling thing about how Dr. Ishiki viewed her patients was that she queried if his connection to me might impact his data gathering. He, of course, informed her in no uncertain terms that it wouldn't be a problem. To her, I was a data point. To him, I was a wellspring of information.

I don't think I was ever human to either of them.

Ultimately, that's what started everything. Or, I suppose, from Dr. Ishiki's perspective, what ended it.

My limited interactions with others proved harmful to my mental health. I began acting out. The first thing I did was try to break the cameras in my room. I didn't succeed, but I did manage to tear off a bandage and cover the lens of one of them by using the corner of the room to climb to it.

That's when they decided to move me.

Or maybe it was after I flipped a gurney?

No. That happened while they were moving me. Dr. Kuroda always instructed the aides to sedate me before interacting, and the room could be gassed if need be. Most of the employees were too kind for that.

When they came in, they didn't even want to strap me down.

I headbutted the first one. Bit the second. Got tasered by the third.

I think Dr. Kuroda enjoyed not telling the aides just how likely I was to resort to violence. My isolation increased my paranoia, and when I’m scared I fight. Every time.

To make matters worse, people could be staring at me at any moment. It was an odd combination, crushing loneliness mixed with constant fear of prying eyes. Additionally, I had very little in terms of entertainment. Staffers occasionally gave me magazines they had finished, but that was really all I had.

I spent most of my time bored...and caged. No more valued than an interesting animal in a zoo.

And yet, for some reason, these people decided the best thing to do was haul me away with no explanation.

When I first arrived at the Department of Supernatural Individuality everything had seemed eerily quiet. This time it all felt monstrously loud. I could hear the clacking of keyboards. The myriad steps of people rushing from room to room. And a scream.

I had heard it before. Much closer. There was a room, very internal to the building and right near the main offices, where they carried out some of the worst experiments. I had been in there before, had heard the scream, but they kept the room partially partitioned. I could hear the scream, but I couldn't see what occurred to cause it.

I just knew that every time they ran this particular experiment I would feel ill for a day or two. And that I would change. Usually a subtle change. Something stupid, yet obvious. At the time, I just assumed it was part of my isolation.

I know better now.

My apologies. I shouldn't derail. You'll hear more about that room when I continue, but right now what you need to see...No. Who you need to meet.

They brought me to a much larger, and rather traditional, room on the first floor. Glass like what had been on my door covered one wall, this time clear from my side, and showcasing a traditional Japanese garden. If you just walked in, you might have assumed it was a nice, if small, room in a ryokan. Two futons were carefully stashed in a closet with plenty of bedding. A dresser rested against a wall, small but functional.

A small section right by the door wasn't covered in tatami, so you could take off your shoes there.

I kicked them off by instinct and wandered into the room, still unsure. I heard the door slam shut behind me.

This room actually had a proper wall for its toilet area and a separate bathing section with a proper bath. I had gone from a tiny cell in an insane asylum to long-term care.

It actually rather closely resembled a place I had visited with my mother once. A place designed to help patients find peace on their own. A place to shelter from the cruel world.

I had just opened the dresser to see a few day's worth of clothes when the door opened again.

In the doorway, carefully kicking off a pair of worn-out sneakers, was a boy several years younger than me. He was ten years old, thin, and had almost freakishly wide eyes.

He stepped onto the tatami and just stood there.

I stood from my position, and for a moment we just looked at each other.

"He-hello," he stuttered with a clumsy bow. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Takara Endo."

I hadn't heard formality like that for at least a year by then and I probably replied too harshly.

"Goro Akechi."

"Mr. Akechi?"

"Just Akechi is fine."

"Okay." He glanced nervously around the room, his eyes so wide I thought they might pop out of his head.

He stepped a little further into the room. Then he saw the window. With an exclamation of appreciation, he ran for it and stared at the garden.

"It's so pretty."

I walked forward to look outside as well.

"We'll never get to interact with it."

"That's okay. If I don't actually walk in it, I can tell myself it's huge." He spun around to face me. "Full of adventures!"

"Heh. Like Sherwood Forest."

"Sherwood?"

"Do you know the story of Robin Hood?"

Kara, I would start calling him that within just a few days, shook his head no.

I sat on the floor. "Well then, may as well pass the time."

He sat beside me.

"Are you going to tell a story?"

"Yes. I'm going to tell you about the greatest hero who ever lived."

Kara countered my claim. "That's clearly Feather Pigeon.”

He caught me so off-guard. I must have stared at him for minutes.

"What? What did I say?"

"You like Feather Pigeon too?"

"Yeah. Feather Dooka is boring."

"He is rather predictable, isn't he?"

"You watch Phoenix Ranger Featherman R too?"

"I used to. Mostly reruns, so I'm more familiar with the older shows."

"And you like Feather Pigeon too?"

"He’s my favorite."

Kara’s mouth dropped and he gaped at me. "And Robin Hood is better?” he whispered in an excited voice.

"Yeah."

He burst into this huge grin. "How? Come on, tell me!"

I had never actually told anyone the Robin Hood stories I knew, but I knew them well. I had read several versions as a child, and seen multiple movies. In both Japanese and English.

I hadn't shared that love for a long time. So I was a little rusty, but looking out over that garden and telling the story of the greatest thief and hero ever felt like paradise.

For a moment, I even forgot the truth of my situation.

Kara. I'm so sorry.

**NOW**

Akechi sighed. “My apologies, but I need a moment to gather my thoughts.”

“I’d prefer if you kept going,” Sae replied coldly.

Makoto glared at her older sister. “He’s been speaking for a long time. He needs a break.”

Akira nodded. “We should take a break for dinner.” He looked to Makoto. “And let our friends know we’re okay.”

“Agreed.” Makoto stood. “How do beef bowls sound? We’ve got a place nearby.”

Sae sighed before standing as well. “Very well. I’ll make some fresh tea then.”

“Go with Makoto,” Akira bade Morgana.

“But…”

Akechi smirked at Morgana. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

With a sigh, Morgana trotted over to join Makoto. She scooped him up in her arms. 

“We’ll be back soon.”

“Thanks, Makoto. Morgana.”

The door closed behind her.

Akira turned his full attention to Akechi.

“Akechi?” 

“What?”

“Why now?”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

Akira took a deep breath before explaining himself. “Why are you confessing now? You never said anything about it even in Maruki’s reality. And you haven’t contacted any of us for almost two years. So, why now?”

Akechi smiled slightly, the sad smile Akira had seen the Detective Prince give so often. “Because you need to understand. You need to realize how much further back than Masayoshi Shido this all goes. How long Persona research has gone on, and how devastating it can be. How much the government supports it, and how deep its roots.”

“Sojiro made the government connection pretty clear.”

“Heh. You still don’t understand. You still believe, all of you, that the cognitive psience research which took place in Tokyo was some sort of one-off. After all, Maruki believed the excuse that it was too experimental to fund. That no one believed him. That simply isn’t true.”

“Okay, but why now?”

Akechi looked past him, to Sae carefully spooning tea leaves into a pot and beyond to the plain white walls of the Niijima residence. “It never ends. Even as the Phantom Thieves fought in Tokyo, trouble arose elsewhere; Persona users were stripped of their being, apathy syndrome rolled over a city. A series of unsolvable murders and a city and chaos. And, as always, it’s the kids who fight back. Who always have to fight back.”

“That’s not true.”

Akira and Akechi both turned their attention to Sae. She stood behind a small counter, leaves floating in the glass teapot in front of her.

“Adults do what they can too.”

“No,” replied Akechi harshly. “I can’t speak for age in general, for how the mind changes, or for cases like Maruki where the Persona develops later in life, but maintaining a stable Persona requires focus. It demands absolute certainty in who you are and who you want to be. Even if it’s subconscious, nothing can interfere with that clarity. The fact of the matter is, Persona manifest more easily with a concrete goal than with any general desire.”

He sighed. “It’s hard. Perhaps for other Persona users it’s different, but for me…” Akechi looked straight into Akira’s eyes. “If I lose sight of who I am, of what I want, then Loki loses form. He lashes out, desperate for an identity. I know I mentioned it briefly before, but Persona are dangerous. Sometimes, Loki even tries to end it all.”

“To kill you?”

Akechi nodded. “Unintended suicide. How’s that for a thought?”

Akira visibly shuddered. “I can’t even imagine it. If Arsene went berserk…”

Sae walked over with the freshly brewed tea. “If one is so difficult, then how does he maintain several?”

“I don’t know.”

“But…” Akira tilted his head slightly, eyes on Akechi, “you have multiple too, don’t you?”

Akechi clasped the empty mug in front of him. “It’s...complicated.”

“Goro?”

Sae poured some tea in Akechi’s mug, nimbly avoiding spilling hot water on his hands.

“It has to do with why you wanted this break,” she surmised.

Akechi, still staring into his mug, nodded.

Sae poured Akira some fresh tea too.

“I’ll go ahead and refill the pot again. The others should be back soon.”

“Thank you.”

Sae nodded and headed back to the small kitchen, leaving Akechi and Akira to sit in silence.

Sure enough, it wasn’t much longer before the apartment door opened.

A loud “We’re back!” mreow heralded Morgana and Makoto’s arrival.

Makoto set a couple bags of plastic bowls on the table.

“I wasn’t sure your preference, Akechi, so I just got you the standard.” She set a bowl in front of him. “Extra large for Akira, with cheese.”

“Thanks, Makoto.”

“And lots of ginger for my sister and me.”

“Thank you.” Sae returned once more with a fresh pot and some chopsticks.

Akechi popped off the lid of his bowl. “I’ll explain after we eat.”

Morgana hopped up beside Akira’s bowl. “Explain what?”

“Why it’s complicated. And,” he lifted up a piece of thin-cut beef, “the truth about Robin Hood.”

**THEN**

The truth about Robin Hood. That’s what I promised you. And what I mean to deliver. That being said, I don’t really know how to explain it. Or, more precisely, I truly don’t wish to remember it. 

If I had allowed Maruki to grant me one wish, it would have been to change this. This moment. This time. Even more than my mother’s death, I believe this is what truly set me on my vengeful path.

And it has to stand alone.

His name was Takara Endo. I called him Kara and thought of him as my little brother. I was fourteen. He was ten. I told him stories of heroes, or Robin Hood and of Feathermen. In his mind, those stories became real. He took the role of hero in play. Infused himself with their courage.

I was the special case. The troublesome patient filled with possibility. Kara was my medication, there to keep me stable. There to pacify me.

It wasn’t long after we were introduced that the nature of the experiments changed. They shifted from a more literal approach filled with brain scans, through well understood psychological tactics, and onto questions of morality. Rorschach tests. Moral dilemmas. A careful examination of everything I was.

Then, every week, they’d bring me to a certain room. The one near the head offices. The one where people screamed.

I had entered this room before. It was where they kept a contraption much like Dr. Kujou’s. They would scan my Persona or attempt to draw it out, but it never quite worked. Loki refused to fully materialize. The room would grow dark, lights dimming, but that was the only sign of his presence. 

The time had come to try something different.

That’s when the screaming started. Mine. Someone’s else’s. Oftentime, I couldn’t tell where one sounded and another began. Our voices blended together.

Mine and my victims’.

As I screamed, my head felt like it would split open, allowing in the other. New emotions. New memories, fragmented but clear nonetheless. New interests. Worst of all, a shift in my very personality.

Turns out, that was one of the main goals of cognitive psience. The main thing Dr. Ishiki researched. The question of how to fix someone’s personality by giving one individual’s excess to fill another’s emptiness.

Too violent? Have a pacifist. Too emotional? Why don’t give you some to the person who’s blocked all emotion from their world? 

Too scared to fight back? Have someone with a hero complex.

Have…

I don’t expect any of you to ever agree with what I did. My actions were horrific, and their consequences upon Futaba dire. 

I just want you to understand. I think, if I can make you understand, then I can move forward. When all my justifications are laid out for others, I hope I can move past them.

Kara.

His mother had sold him to Dr. Kuroda in exchange for release from a crippling debt. Up until that point, she’d mostly ignored him. He got excited every time we were fed. It thrilled him when I washed his back, and even when he washed mine, because no one had ever done that for him before.

Living with him reminded me of some of the joy I felt when I lived with my mother. Only now _I_ was the parent.

He loved nothing more than sitting on my lap, or laying beside me, and listening to my stories. I told him every store I knew. Every episode of Feathermen I vaguely remembered. Every Robin Hood tale I could conceive.

And he helped write those stories. He pretended to be Robin Hood. Imagined the green just outside our room to be the vast forest of Sherwood. In his stories, he always helped those less fortunate than himself. He tirelessly worked to defend his family of merry men. Of me.

Kara wanted to protect me.

And, at some point, I realized I wanted to protect him too.

I should have known better. Should have realized the point of the whole thing. Those dreams of heroism and justice? I had already abandoned them and yet... yet I passed them onto him.

And Loki refused to materialize. No matter what they did. Loki refused. I refused. I didn’t want them to see the real me.

Dr. Kuroda realized he’d have to force it out.

So he did.

A normal day. 

I provided prompts for Kara’s play as he embodied the nobility and caring of Robin Hood.

And then that step, soft-step, thud.

Kara and I both stopped, listening intently. Dr. Kuroda rarely came to our room anymore, but whenever he passed by we listened intently, hoping he would pass us by.

Not this time.

Kara dove behind me as Dr. Kuroda walked into our room.

“Enjoying your time together?”

I don’t think I answered him. 

“It is time for your appointment, Goro.” He smiled at us. “Don’t worry. You can play more when this is over.”

I started to stand. Kara grabbed my waist. He begged me not to go. I reminded him that I didn’t really have a choice. I could go willingly, or I could fight and get drugged. Those were the only two options, and we both knew it.

I hugged him. I held him tight and told him everything would be okay.

At least, I hope I did. I really hope I did. And I wish...I wish I had told him how much he mattered to me. How long it had been, since I had loved or been loved by anyone.

We both worried so much when the other got taken out. We both knew people died in this building, of these experiments. We both knew each time could be the last.

As if to offer comfort, Dr. Kuroda assured us he would never dream of separating us.

I always hear his words now with far more ominous intent than how he spoke them. I’m sure if he had spoken as I now hear him, I’m sure I would have at least tried to fight then.

I don’t think I felt more nervous than usual. Dr. Kuroda led me to a basic doctor’s office for a physical. One I performed quite well in.

My physical health had improved since meeting Kara. All our play, both in our room and in the yard, helped considerably. Dr. Kuroda made sure we got plenty of time in the yard. I was easier to deal with when content, and he wanted me healthy.

Looking back though, I don’t think it had anything with the desire to keep his charges healthy. Rather, everything to do with my ultimate purpose. I don’t know if he always intended me to work with Shido, but I’m certain he wished to test my abilities in the wild. While the Metaverse wasn’t well understood, the scientist did know about Shadows. About creatures you needed a Persona user to fight.

He always meant that for me. Always meant for me to fight.

My physical revealed a bit of weight gain, likely due to increased muscle mass. Though, I did eat better in front of Kara.

I always worried so much that he wouldn’t take care of himself, that I made sure to be a good role model.

He really was my little brother.

I know I’m rambling. That day is such an odd combination of crystal clear and blurred chaos. I remember everything so clearly that I can’t help but wonder if I’m not in fact combining multiple days into one.

Or if my nightmares have seeped into my memory. I still have them. Nightmare after nightmare about how I might have changed things. Would Kara have lived if I had simply ignored him? Could I have fought back? Run away with the both of us?

If I had never befriended him, would he have been more valuable to them alive? Or would he still die, and only my reaction to it change?

If I had told him all those stories, would he have even developed a Persona? Or would it simply have been different?

Whatever the case, I can’t change the past. Not even Maruki’s attempt at a perfect reality fixed this hole. 

If there’s one singular moment I could change, one moment which solidified my path, it’s what happened this day.

I loved him. He’s the last person I have ever loved, and I think it’s very likely he’s the last person I will ever love.

I’ve run through how to tell this tale again and again in my mind, so why is it so hard?

I just…

Alright, here we go.

After my physical, I was brought to the main experimentation room. I’ve described it before, but I should add that the room was subdivided. A partition stopped the test subjects from ever seeing one another, but I had been on both sides and knew that a pod existed on each. An observation room encircled the entire thing, sturdy glass protecting the view. The bulk of the controls were in there, so that if something went wrong no scientist had to risk themselves shutting things down.

I suppose it was a hopeful, if somewhat misguided, theory.

Dr. Kuroda strapped me down as he often did. Sometimes, they tried to pull my Persona out. Other times, they shoved a new one inside.

Those Persona were all quite weak. Far too weak to ever be of any practical use. I think Loki just absorbed them. Little blips which were hardly noticed.

As I mentioned earlier, these experiments produced odd changes in me. For instance, I would develop a new interest. For example, I never cared much for board games, but at some point a person used in the experiment must have greatly loved them. Their love of board games combined with my interest in puzzles, leading me to form a fondness for strategy games. I was familiar with chess, and Go, and shogi, but I had never cared about them until then.

I was always one for more physical games and activities. I didn’t lose that per se, I simply developed yet another interest.

When I spoke about some of my fear involved with changing people’s heart, I wasn’t just speaking about my own use of the Metaverse. Rather, I had experienced what it is to have aspects of yourself changed without your permission or input. Frankly, it’s horrific.

And yet, not nearly as horrific as what became of those on the other side of the partition. I carried a piece of them inside of me.

For most of them, it was the last piece to survive.

I knew people died, but I never realized quite how horribly. Kara was the only other test subject I ever interacted with.

It seemed strange at the time, but after everything that happened, I think I understand it. Dr. Kuroda may be viler than Shuten Doji, but he knows what he’s doing. No matter what he’s doing.

When you connect with someone’s Persona, you connect with their soul. That’s why the personality adjustments worked. I was absorbing people’s souls. Since they were all unknowns, that never meant much to me and equated to a relatively small change.

This time though...this time it felt familiar. And I knew the scream.

I struggled against the bindings so aggressively that my bruises lasted almost a month. I wanted out of that machine, and I needed to get Kara out.

I actually nearly choked myself. From the observatory, it probably looked like a seizure. Maybe it was.

But I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t want to consume Kara’s soul.

It was warm, and kind, and brave. Despite all his agony. Despite his sheer terror.

He wanted to save me.

Even though Kara was dying, his Persona wanted to be with me.

If it weren’t the way the machine forced the Persona inside of me, he would have used every last ounce of his will to break me out. His Persona would have held me. Comforted me.

The way I sometimes comforted him.

In a strange way, his Persona even resembled me. I felt our memories in its warmth. All those games of Feathermen and Robin Hood remembered the way a child remembers them. When it’s like you’re visiting another world. Children don’t pretend to be their characters. They become their characters. It’s not that Kara didn’t know he only imagined these scenes. That just didn’t make them less real.

I was his Friar Tuck. And his Little John. And even his Maid Marian.

Heh. I was his damsel in distress.

I don’t think I ever really believed he loved me until that moment. I certainly didn’t realize how much. He wanted to save me so badly. No one had ever wanted to save me before. No one had ever been willing to die for me.

Not even my mother. For all her love, and for all I loved her, for all I still love her, she ultimately chose to run.

Even if he could have, Kara would never have run. He would never have abandoned me. He never did. Instead, he stayed with me. 

I think, even given the choice, he would have told Robin Hood, told his Persona, to take me and run. Even if meant leaving himself defenseless.

He was ten years old and braver than anyone I have ever known.

All he wanted was to help me. To defend me.

And I killed him. Brutally.

Loki had never materialized before, but now he did. Amorphous and terrible, he rose from within me. 

Tendrils wrapped around Robin Hood.

My throat hurt from screaming. From demanding he stop.

From begging him not to eat this one. Please, just this once…

There’s a gap in my memories. Probably a minute or two.

I stood. Loki rampaged throughout the room, destroying equipment and knocking down barriers. A security team entered the room to sedate me.

One touch from Loki and they collapsed, their minds shutting down. And I heard the echo of their last conscious thought.

Monster.

That’s all any of them thought. I wasn’t a person, and I never had been. Rather, I was more like Frankenstein’s monster, rampaging because I simply didn’t know what to do.

Barely aware of my surroundings, I shuffled toward Kara and…

When I saw him- I...I knew it was him, but…

I had stripped him. Devoured him. All that remained of my precious little brother was an inside-out corpse.

The removal of a Persona, when truly removed it...it literally turns a person inside out.

And I had done that to him.

I killed him. They gave me someone I could care for and love. They made sure it happened, just so they could force me to kill him.

How the hell am I supposed to value a life after that! 

Much less theirs. Any of them?

How could anyone expect that of me?

[ ](https://twitter.com/hellohelss/status/1354860878873686017?s=20)

**NOW**

Akira reached his hand across the small table. He couldn’t quite reach Akechi, but still he tried.

Makoto rested a hand on Akechi’s shaking shoulders.

Sae stared down at her own lap. Morgana looked down at the table.

No one looked directly into Akechi’s tear-filled eyes.

“I don’t deserve Robin Hood. I never did. I wanted to be a hero once, but I passed that dream to Kara...and it killed him. I killed him.”

Several mouths opened and closed in a futile attempt to speak, but ultimately no words came.

“I’m not quite sure how, but I tore Kara out of his bindings, and I held him.”

Without a word or a sound, Akira slid back his chair and stood, moving around the table.

“Blood must have gotten everywhere.”

Akira placed a comforting hand on Akechi’s other shoulder, opposite Makoto.

Akechi looked up at him, tears streaming down his face.

“She was there. She watched. And she stared down at me. I held Kara in my arms and I looked up at the observatory.”

Akechi’s voice grew quieter. “All the other scientists moved desperately about the equipment, hping to find a way to put me down, but not Dr. Ishiki. She stared right back at me.”

He took a deep breath, facing forward once more.

Akira didn’t leave his side.

“I knew about Futaba. Knew she had a daughter just a little younger than me, and a little older than Kara. And yet, she watched Kara die. She watched me suffer. And to her, it was all nothing more than data points.”

He looked back up at Akira. “I’m okay now.”

“You sure?”

Akechi nodded. Akira removed his hand and moved back to his seat.

Akechi turned to Makoto, who had yet to remove her hand.

“I know that type of hurt,” she said simply. “The hurt of losing family. I don’t think it ever really heals.”

Akechi brushed away her hand. “I don’t want it to.” He turned back to Akira, who had taken his seat.

“Loki screamed, body morphing into a dozen different forms all at once. Constant change. Constant shift. The glass to the observatory shattered. Loki reached in, destroying the scientists who attempted to work the machinery, and their last thoughts weren’t just that I was a monster. They wondered why they had to deal with me, when Ishiki’s daughter would have sufficed.”

“Futaba?” queried Morgana.

“The scientists seemed to think, and I confirmed this with Dr. Kuroda later, that Futaba would have done just fine. She had the potential, but she also had a mother. One who had agreed to pulling children off the streets, just so she wouldn’t have to use her own daughter.”

“The terrifying thing is...all the scientists seemed to agree that without street urchins to work with she would. That if that’s what it took, she would use her own daughter.”

Makoto audibly gasped. “But...she loved Futaba.”

“I know she did, but she had become warped. Perhaps if I had interacted with her more, had forced her to confront her own distortions as you all did with Sae, then maybe things could have ended differently. As it was, we locked eyes, and my ire was directed towards her.”

“They had to pay. All of them. Still holding Kara’s body with a strength I doubt I shall ever summon again, I stumbled towards her. Finally, she moved away. Finally, she began her retreat.”

“That’s when I saw the real her. The real her didn’t flee, but rather stayed, glaring down at me with utter contempt. And I knew. I knew that was the Wakaba Ishiki I needed to kill. The other one, that one I had met before, that one pretended. That one justified her actions with grand goals and the greater good.”

“Not the real her though. No. The real her, her Shadow...Her Shadow knew exactly what she did, and why she did it. No false justification. Just a cold truth.”

Akechi looked around the table as though daring someone to interrupt.

“Her yellow eyes bore into me and everything changed.”

**THEN**

Those of you who have entered a Palace before understand just how off-putting they feel. Even when nothing seems obviously impossible or out of place, they never quite match reality. It’s like the rules bend around you.

So it was with Wakaba Ishiki's Palace.

While I never used the MetaNav to enter her Palace, I can theorize her keywords based on what I do know. Wakaba Ishiki. Department of Supernatural Individuality. Garden.

I vanished from a world of metal and glass to enter one of wood and tatami. While very little protruded in the architecture of the lab for fear of patients hanging themselves, this new place possessed exposed wooden beams.

While the lab always felt cold, there was an intrinsic warmth to this new space.

Even as I clutched the body of my little brother.

Loki receded within me, but as he did my clothing changed. Instead of the loose clothing I had grown accustomed to at the lab I now wore something which fit tight about my form.

A helmet hindered my peripheral vision. Despite that, I felt its weight comforting.

I still do.

I felt like a dark knight out for vengeance. I had failed to protect those few I cared for. I now wished to at least protect myself.

It's actually one of the few times in my life I realized how much I actually value myself. I accept the risks of what I do. I accept that to kill others means they may one day kill you.

But I do value my existence.

Taloned gloves gripped Kara's form, allowing me to hold him despite the slick blood.

I stared up at where Dr. Ishiki had been. A balcony surrounded my space. Forms milled around up there. Bright sunlight shone down upon me.

It was such a stark contrast to what I had just experienced. Who knows how long I stood there in shock?

Then, a voice over the speaker.

"A poisonous weed has entered the nursery. Gardeners, prepare for extraction."

It sounded a lot like the speakers on a train, factual and to the point. It related its information without any need for emotion. The forms on the balcony stopped, each one staring down at me.

A quick glance at my more immediate surroundings revealed I was on some sort of stage. The sunlight filtered through a glass roof, and the space was quite literally warm.

Saplings, still in their pots, grew about the stage. Some of these plants were connected to some sort of lab equipment.

I suspect it was some sort of breeding or gene splicing facility.

However, before I could try to guess at my actual location, one of the forms from the balcony leapt down.

It looked humanoid, but was entirely black except for its white lab coat, thick brown gloves, and the purple camellia growing out of its face.

It ripped off the flower and exploded into three faeries. I now recognize them as pixies, but at the time I assumed hallucinations.

Which, actually, isn’t technically inaccurate. Future research later connected the hallucinations I had experienced throughout my life directly with the Metaverse. It turns out that my psychotic breaks are actual glimpses into the Metaverse.

Whatever the case, I didn't recognize the danger until a small bolt of lighting struck my shoulder. Another pixie hovered for a moment, wings working furiously.

The bolt caused me to drop Kara.

The pixies declared they would kill the weed.

Wind buffeted me away from them, and away from Kara.

I had summoned Loki before on my own terms, but I didn't know how to choose the timing. I just knew I needed to move forward.

That's all I've ever really wanted. All my mother ever really sought. All Kara really needed.

To just move forward and live our lives. That's all any of us ever wanted. That I concluded the only way forward was to crush the others in front of me is merely a sick joke of the universe.

It's not that I'm against removing obstacles in my path. I just now realize that not everyone is an obstacle.

Loki surged forward, dragging me along behind him. He grabbed the pixie flapping her wings with his giant hand. The third pixie tried desperately to heal her.

Loki grabbed her too, even as he brought the other to his gaping maw.

One bite. That's all it took and he sent the pixie's vanishing, headless, form away.

Lightning rained down on Loki, small bolt after small bolt.

He tore off the wings of the healer.

I felt it all. I felt my hands tear into faerie wings. Felt my teeth rip into a small neck. Felt the lightning bolts upon me, though they didn't sting nearly so much when striking Loki.

I moved my arm. I moved Loki's arm.

The pixie attempting to pester me with lighting bolts slammed into one of the tables, crumpling.

I think she begged for her life, but I was in no mood to care and Loki was in no mood to let my rationale catch up to my actions.

He ripped her in two.

It felt exhilarating.

Then, Loki turned toward me. A face I didn't recognize formed from his chest, initially sliding out from one of Loki's bands of scintillating white. A golden chin guard, golden eyes, and a red cap-looking object, marked its face.

A hand, the same color as the face, reached out. I first thought it reached for me, but when I followed its outstretched hand I realized it reached for Kara instead.

"Are you his?"

The Persona attempted to surge forward, showcasing wide shoulders, strong muscles, and some blue on its chest.

Loki wrapped himself around it, like you might cover someone with a blanket.

A moment later, a golden arrow shot forth, hitting the balcony.

I felt like it had shot me through the heart. Loki no longer held a solid form, and I saw Robin Hood properly for the first time.

He looked so similar to how Kara had imagined the hero might look in a Super Sentai uniform that I didn't doubt his identity for a moment.

Several more gardeners look ready to cross the railing and leap for the stage.

"Come, Robin Hood! Defend me!"

Loki melded with Robin Hood, black blending into black and white into white. Arrows rained from above.

I ran for the door even as Robin Hood’s arrows struck my enemies.

**NOW**

"How could you use someone else's Persona?"

Akechi looked at Sae, and then to the Phantom Thieves. They seemed as confused as her.

"Loki is unique," he explained. "A mimic. When he devours a Persona or Shadow, he grows stronger and he learns to mimic their form. The ultimate adapter.”

"Does he change your outfit too?" asked Morgana.

Akechi nodded. "What I wore when I first joined the Phantom Thieves was based upon Kara’s vision of a hero, the dream I passed to him and he passed back to me."

"Does it change for every Persona?" asked Akira, honestly curious. He could have gone for a couple of wardrobe changes here and there himself.

"I'm not sure. Except for Robin Hood, I've never used mimicry for a complete change.”

"Why not?"

Akechi now turned to Makoto.

She clarified her question. "Being able to switch Persona, even if it's technically mimicry, is incredibly potent. It's hard to imagine you not using it to your advantage."

"True, but it is...uncomfortable. I find Robin Hood fairly easy to use, and his personality fit well with my detective prince persona."

"Does it impact your personality?" asked Akira.

"I wouldn't go that far. Acquiring them is the event which impacts my psyche. However, it does shift me a bit I suppose. Of more concern is Loki himself. When he's amorphous he's uncontrollable. If I don't have a clear gasp of who I am and what I want, he grows violent. He didn't take the form you saw in the engine room until after I decided to work as Shido's hit man in order to take him down from the inside."

Akechi let out a soft harrumph. "I think he likes overly convoluted plans."

"Your Persona is you," Makoto reminded him.

"Correction. Your Persona is a part of you. You are not defined by leather and motorbikes, Makoto Niijima. Just as thinking of Morgana as an over-the-top swashbuckler or a divine messenger is not the entirety of his existence."

“Loki is a part of me. A strong part, certainly, but he is not all of me. The same is true of Robin Hood and all the others. They are parts of me. Used and ripped from others, yes, but a part of me nonetheless.”

**THEN**

At that moment I needed a guardian, not a killer. I ran through Ishiki’s Palace until I found a side passage I could hide in. It seemed mostly designed for natural light and ended in a large window. The outside world was overgrown. To Ishiki, everyone was a flower to be nurtured or a weed to be investigated and destroyed. 

Apart from windows like that, I never saw the outside of her Palace. I can’t tell you what she thought of Tokyo. I leaned into the corner, where I would be hard to spot both from the main hallway and the window.

My Persona faded, but it was only when it changed back to what you refer to as my black mask outfit, that I realized that had changed as well.

Loki whispered of revenge and hunger. Robin Hood whispered of heroics and living on.

I rested until the sounds of pursuit had long passed. 

After that, I moved as carefully as possible. Robin Hood proved adept at striking my enemies from range, well before they even noticed me. As for Loki, well, he hadn’t shown his true power yet.

Still, most of the Shadows were fairly weak and I avoided combat as much as possible. With Robin Hood, even when it proved unavoidable, my enemies never got a chance to strike.

As you well know, constant Persona use is exhausting. I had no sense for it at the time, but could tell I was wearing down. 

My head hurt. My heart ached. My body grew tired.

Eventually though, I found a door which appeared to lead outside. Gardeners carefully tended to the plants there, and I could just make out the side of a palatial greenhouse.

I waited until no Shadows stood nearby before carefully pushing it open.

The outside air smelled amazing, scented by a thousand flowers and a hundred trees. The garden I spent time in was traditionally Japanese. There were smells to it, but far more emphasis on producing quiet and serenity.

This was like walking into a botanical garden at the height of spring.

The flowers bloomed in all sorts of colors, including varieties I don’t exist in nature. Every color of the visible spectrum was represented, purples, and blues, and oranges, and pinks. All of them produced a beautiful smell too. And it all combined into a single effervescent perfume.

All of them were perfect.

Every flower and ever tree was the absolute best it could be, and yet not all the same. Each one grew and flourished in a way which was not just perfect for its species, but for its location in the garden.

It didn’t take long for me to realize the entire Palace was like that. The building, the flowers, the gardeners, all of them perfect. Perfect paths. Perfect forms. Perfect behaviors. Even the bees flew in a pattern.

Every shadow wore a camellia flower as its mask. Akira worked in a flower shop, so he may already know this, but camellia flowers represent the divine. However, in the language of flowers more commonly used, they represent desire, faithfulness, refinement, and perfection. I suspect if I had known more about the meanings for various colors I would have noticed a pattern in what shadows wore which color.

I approached the greenhouse carefully. The abundance of growth made hiding from shadows simple, and I encountered little trouble in my approach.

As I grew closer, I could see white camellias growing up against the glass. Rather than looking unplanned or overly clustered, they reminded me of a colored drawing carefully restrained by its lines.

My mother loved it when I could get her a white camellia flowers. She told me once that they represent the love between a mother and her child.

By the time I reached the greenhouse doors, spots of pink hinted at something more within.

A growing sense of unease informed me I wouldn’t like what I found.

I dropped my helm’s visor over my eyes. It impaired my vision, but at least nothing could break my skull open.

And at least nothing would see my face.

I don’t know why that mattered at the moment. I probably only cared out of fear. 

I don’t handle fear well, always choosing to lash out at that which triggers it.

The greenhouse door was unlocked, so I entered easily. I suppose even in a Palace, Ishiki realized that locking a glass door is simply a good way to end up cleaning broken glass.

A single path wound its way amid the flowers, a meditation labyrinth in the green. And enforced by the green. 

The flower bushes were massive, bigger than I think they are in nature. Now that I was inside though, I could see beneath the perfection. Rather literally.

Instead of smelling of fresh soil and rain, the ground smelled of decay. Beneath those magnificent white blooms, wilting ones. Their petals littered the ground, joining with the soil to produce perfection above.

I don’t find it an inaccurate portrayal. In nature, only the strong survive, and they survive by rising above the corpses of their fellows. Plants decay into the soil to feed the survivors. Herd animals leave one of the herd dead so that the rest may flee. The sick and dying are weeded out, ultimately nothing more than food for their brethren.

There’s beauty to that cycle. In the dead supporting the living past their time. The camellia blossoms were beautiful even as they grew out of the nutrients left by the dead brethren. The dead fueled their ongoing survival.

Their continued perfection.

I wound my way through the labyrinth, taking in the blooms. Water sticks carefully monitored moisture in the soil to ensure the perfect ratio.

I encountered a wheelbarrow on the path, filled with fertilizer in its most basic form.

Shit and the dead.

A decomposing hand stuck out from among feces and blood. A lone eyeball peered up at the ceiling as though it wished to ignore that which surrounded it. A pair of lungs slowly moved, expanding and contracting from the slow air moving within the greenhouse. A parody of their true function.

I puked in the compost. It seemed fitting somehow. The smell of blossoms quickly overpowered it, incidentally explaining why I couldn’t smell the wheelbarrow the moment I walked in.

Or maybe it was the very source of decay.

I continued on my way.

Now that I had seen the fertilizer, I began to notice oddities in the soil. The newly planted sections still showed signs of their origins, so that as I approached the center the blooms became more magnificent and the ground more disturbing.

I could see the human remains now, lush green leaves cloaking them from sight.

The thin path opened wide and I could see the center.

The center of a labyrinth is like a heart. When used for meditation, it’s the spot where you might sit and rest to contemplate your journey. In the legend of the minotaur it is the place where your journey ends.

Knowing what I know now, I do not doubt that what I found there was Wakaba Ishiki’s treasure. It had manifested before I even encountered her Shadow. One thing she never doubted was what she treasured most in all the world.

This treasure is why I couldn’t tell this tale to Futaba. Not only is it the story of how I killed her mother’s Shadow, but it is also a story of distorted love.

The center of the labyrinth glistened. Absolute perfection. And in the center, surrounded by a mix of white camellias and pink carnations stood a glass tree. 

Sunlight refracted against the glass to generate a sort of spotlight on the figure inside. There, inside the tree of glass, sunlight sparkling against red hair with pink carnations woven through it, was Futaba Ishiki.

Her skin was pale, but not unhealthy. Her hair gleamed in the sunlight. A simple white shift protected her modesty and swayed in an unfelt breeze.

I felt like the Prince from Snow White, beholding a sleeping maiden in her glass coffin.

I won’t deny I found her beautiful, far more beautiful than I have ever found the real thing.

I stepped forward, careful to avoid crushing the flowers blooming at the tree’s base.

And I understood. Even before confronting Wakaba Ishiki’s Shadow, I understood.

There, in that glass tree, was my purpose. The reason why all the horrors committed at the Department of Supernatural Individuality were worth it. Why I existed. Why my life meant something.

When I first met Futaba in reality, all those feelings, and all the anger with which they filled me, rushed straight back.

Wakaba Ishiki saw her daughter as capable of perfection. A while camellia, or a carnation, perfectly beautiful and suited to its purpose. 

I gazed upon the physical representation of what she wished her daughter to become.

I gazed upon a doll in a glass case awaiting the breath of its creator.

A breath filled with the dying screams of others. Of children.

And I knew.

I existed to be fertilizer for Futaba Ishiki.

**NOW**

“That can’t be true!” Makoto Nijima clenched her fists. “It just can’t be.”

“Remember,” offered Morgana, “even if true within the Palace, people fight back against their distortion and desires all the time.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Akechi, “but by the time a Palace forms the damage may already be done.”

Sae nodded her agreement. “Even though I ultimately shut down my own Palace, I acted in ways I never would have otherwise while it existed.”

“Indeed. Much like Sae, I don’t think the Palace would have gotten so large if Ishiki hadn’t been pushed. I never knew her outside of the lab, but having met her daughter it’s quite clear to me that she cared about more than a scientific quest for perfection. And that, perfect or not, she loved her daughter.”

Akechi linked his fingers together and rested his chin on them. “My judgment in this is far from unbiased, but I suspect Dr. Kuroda’s influence in this. Or perhaps, Shido originally suggested something so awful for the research that what they ended up doing didn’t seem so bad. It’s not an uncommon negotiating tactic. You offer something you know the bidder will refuse outright so that your next proposal sounds more reasonable.”

“Her Palace likely formed out of desperation to justify those actions. She wanted to continue her research and so connected it to her daughter.”

He glanced over at Akira. “The human mind excels in pardoning our own bad decisions, even those we personally consider abhorrent.”

Akira offered a small smile, but did not reply.

Sae leaned back in her seat. “Very well, you’ve informed us as to the nature of Wakaba Ishiki’s treasure. What of her Shadow then?”

“Heh. Ready to wrap this up I take it? Very well then. Let us proceed.”

**THEN**

I stared at the doll of Futaba Ishiki for some time, so wrapped up in my discovery I didn’t even notice the approaching gardeners.

Strong black arms with gloved hands seized me. Loki rushed forth to slay my enemies.

Something heavy and somewhat sharp struck my head. I think it was a spade, but I blacked out and didn’t exactly get the chance to check.

I probably pushed my Persona too far and exhausted myself. It’s strange how non-intuitive that really is, at least when you’re in a life or death situation. I learned to pace myself eventually, but my tendency is to treat every battle like it’s my last.

Nonetheless, I let my guard down. 

I should have known better.

When I opened my eyes, everything looked different. That sense of warmth I felt when first entering no longer existed.

This place, this section of the Palace, reminded me of a hospital. Reminded me of the lab. 

Clean. Sterile. Cold.

Wakaba Ishiki’s face stared into mine, mere inches away.

“Fascinating. You infiltrated my garden without the aid of outside influence.”

I’m pretty sure I spat at her.

She backed up. Only then did I realize she wasn’t wearing her glasses. While shadows always appear strange thanks to their yellow eyes, her left eye seemed overly wide and devoid of any pupil or distinctive iris. Just an orb of gleaning yellow.

Otherwise, she initially appeared normal. She wore professional attire with a lab coat over the top. It was the same outfit I ever saw her in.

A large isopod crawled along her head and coat.

That caught my attention.

“Ah, you’ve met my assistant. This is Kuro. He provides fertilizer for the garden.”

“Kuro? Kuroda?”

She smiled at me. A real smile too. I had never seen her smile like that before. “Yes. A disgusting thing, but a valuable assistant.”

That probably really was her cognitive version of Dr. Kuroda. An insect and a parasite, but one who provided her with what she needed. I sometimes wonder if she didn’t assign all the horrors involved in her research to him.

I suppose in all fairness, I blame him for many of my shortcomings as well.

She walked around me, carefully examining my outfit and general health.

“Incredible.” She stroked the fabric of my outfit. “Simply wondrous.” 

She pulled on my helm, but it refused to move. Honestly, it rather hurt.

“Fascinating.”

“What do you want? What was that doll?”

She lunged forward, her face once more close to mine. 

“Doll?” she hissed. “There is no doll. Merely the quest for perfection.” She backed off. “Your personality is far too twisted for my needs, but…”

She turned, and an image of my initial fight in the Palace played on a large monitor in front of us.

“That Persona isn’t yours.”

“You’re the one who shoved him in. I...I didn’t want to kill him.”

The image paused on a frame focused on Robin Hood.

“It’s incredible.” She walked toward the screen, staring at the image. “Perfect mimicry.”

The image shifted, moving through Loki’s transformation in and out of Robin Hood.

“Even _you_ change.” She turned to me again. “You have no personality of your own.”

No personality of my own. That’s not true. I’m just…

She approached me again. “So tell me, Goro Akechi, why should I care what happens to you? Why should you care what happens to you?”

Oddly, the way she spoke reminded me of my mother. The exact same tone she used to take when I disappointed her and she needed me to understand how on my own.

Scolding never worked well with me.

“I don’t want to die,” I replied. “I don’t want to be empty.”

“You already are.”

“No. I’m not.”

I felt Loki inside me, tossing and turning, unsure what form to take. Unsure how to come forth.

“I’m not empty at all.”

But still, he was there. He was always there. Loki is sometimes violent and cruel. Other times though, Loki helps me cope. Helps me find what I need. Helps me remember to smile.

I’m not empty.

Loki is always there, whether I feel it or not. Just because you don’t know how to summon a Persona, just because you lose touch with yourself, doesn’t mean it’s gone. It just gets buried too deep to use.

I’m not empty.

I straightened in my bonds. “And I won’t be your fertilizer. I won’t die for someone else. I won’t let you tell me what I’m worth.”

At the very least, Makoto and Akira know what I felt next. The surge of power. The sudden understanding, like instinct. I imagine it resembles what happened to Miss Okamura. 

My mask blazed. I felt my face melt from the heat.

The restraints burned away.

I could hear Loki telling me to fight against those who would hold me back. I could hear Kara telling me to fight back against the injustice of the world. The injustice in our lives.

I’ve told you before that I find justice a very personal matter. Perhaps my justice more closely resembles vengeance. Or perhaps I have simply been wronged too often.

Hearing my story, can you honestly tell me you think I did the wrong thing? The Phantom Thieves specialized in justice for those who couldn’t find it themselves. Justice for those who, for whatever reason, can’t fight back themselves.

That research had to end. That lab had to shut down.

All I knew at the time was that impacting the Shadow would impact the human. And frankly, I saw Wakaba Ishiki as a rather black and white villainess at the time.

I would end it all.

I tore off the visor. 

It hurt. A lot. The clawed ends of my gloves tore into my skin and it felt like the mask didn’t want to go. Ishiki shouted something, but I couldn’t decipher what.

Release.

Every bad decision. Every twisted wish. Every terrible moment. I felt them all crash down upon me, and from the refuse of my life…

Loki: sharp and blazing. Robin Hood: noble and determined.

I staggered to my feet.

I could tell then. Robin Hood existed as an extension of Loki now. Everything about Loki which represented the fight against tyranny. Everything noble Loki stood for. Every battle fought for freedom. Robin Hood held it all on his broad shoulders.

I had split myself, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be both.

Shadows, dressed like the scientists from the lab, charged me. Several fell to arrows before they could even complete their transformations. The ones who came close, now resembling bound angels, were quickly cut down by Loki’s flaming blade.

I searched around for Ishiki, but she had run. I destroyed her screen, still focused on Robin Hood. Loki cut into it like he found the image personally insulting.

I tried a door. It didn’t open to me, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. Loki’s blade weakened the door. Robin Hood threw it open.

A hallway with windows looked out to the garden. A glass door slammed nearby.

I ran for the door. Sure enough, Shadows approached from that direction.

From the direction Ishiki had likely fled.

From the greenhouse.

Shadows charged me, a horde of ill-intent. I refused to slow. Refused to yield.

Loki and Robin Hood, in constant rotation, began cutting through them. When one came close, Loki rose up to cleave it in two. When none stood before me, Robin Hood fired his arrows to thin the numbers.

I wanted Ishiki. 

A great energy roiled forth from Loki.

The greenhouse shattered, leaving behind only a metal frame.

I heard Ishiki shout. I went for her.

She stood in front of her daughter, her doll, her experiment. She glared at me with her pupiless yellow eye.

Thin lines of blood slid down both of them, cut from the fallen glass.

“How dare you. How dare you harm my daughter?”

I hissed, “You use children for your vile experiments. How can you claim to protect any child?”

I moved slowly, stalking towards her, still unsure of my ultimate goal.

“What would you know? What does an unwanted brat like you know?” She didn’t scream. Or hiss. Or just...fact. She spoke calmly, like she observed from afar. Still, her body trembled.

I stopped my approach. “I make my own decisions. Unwanted or not. I choose my path. You attempt to chisel hers in stone.”

“Never. When I am done, my darling Futaba will be able to do whatever she desires.”

“You program her. You modify her. And it is not painless. You murder children, and I listen to their screams. Their protests. Their clashing intent.”

Loki formed behind me.

“It stops now.”

She ripped open. Her left arm pushed past the limits of her skin, revealing bone and overly long forearms and hand, long bony fingers stroking the flowers below, but only for an instant before she rose higher.

Her right arm burst as well, giving up all pretense of humanity. While still bone, the elbow looked almost riveted. It hung far lower and ended in three pincers rather than a proper hand.

“Why don’t you die?”

Everything below the torso looked different now. Visually, it looked like she stood on her knees. Except that the length to there was already as tall as her. These bone legs ended in taloned...feet? Sure, we’ll call them feet. Yet, it looked like that was only her knee.Bone blades protruded behind where an ankle should have been.

It seemed pretty clear she could stand on those blades if she so desired. If she felt she needed the height.

Her bottom jaw dropped. A series of feelers? Wiggling bone? Something wriggling and reaching and bone grew out from the top of her mouth. It almost looked like the legs of a giant bug attempting to crawl out.

Even in this form, she spoke more like a machine than a person.

“You have now been contaminated by bacteria, and you won’t be able to escape..”

“Watch me.”

Loki surged forward, giant blade leading.

She blocked with her bony hand, scratching across the floor as Loki’s strike pushed her back. 

“You will not infect my daughter.” Noxious gas spewed forth from her mouth.

I think that’s when I realized I bore Futaba Ishiki no ill will. That, if I could, I wanted to save her. To let her discover herself on her own terms. 

“You’re the infection.”

Loki dove away from a pincer strike. Poison tried to push its way into my system, a constant risk.

Ishiki’s Shadow stayed near Futaba. Unfortunately, she had range.

Light struck me, a powerful nuclear attack burning away my skin. I nearly collapsed from the pain.

Kara’s voice rang in my mind, urging his big brother to stand and fight. Urging me to seek justice for the wrongs done.

Loki twisted into Robin Hood. This time, light surrounded her, bright and pure.

She recoiled, skittering around to the other side of Futaba. Robin Hood rose high to keep striking her down.

I stumbled away from my Persona, wishing some separation so she could only get part of me at a time.

Robin Hood deftly dodged the next nuclear attack.

I could see her now. Maintaining Robin Hood certainly took some concentration, but would it be possible for me to physically attack her while Robin Hood provided ranged offense?

A glowing saber appeared in my left hand.

I smiled up at Robin Hood. Kara had liked the bow and arrow idea, but I’d always preferred more sci-fi oriented heroes.

Feeling bolstered by my weapon I darted towards her.

She blocked with the longest finger on her left before I was even close enough to strike her. I leapt back. Robin Hood shot an arrow in her shoulder.

“Don’t make me damage you too much. I still need to determine why the experiments worked on you.”

The bug she called Kuroda crawled down the arrow, popping it out and stitching the wound.

I suppose, deep down, she understood that she wouldn’t do these things without someone pushing her. And every time it began to hurt, he found a way to take away the pain. To steal the objection.

Arrows rained down upon her. She raised her bony arms to protect herself.

I lunged for Kuroda.

A piece of advice for my fellow Persona users, your Persona most certainly can hurt you. Even unintentionally.

Arrows thrust down into my skin, weakening my stride and my grip.

Kuroda sought shelter under Ishiki’s chin, forced to choose between stillness and arrows.

I skewered it.

When I moved back, I came with a dying isopod on the end of a sword. 

I grinned. The sword changed, growing large and more vicious. No longer a fine point, it split Kuroda in two.

Loki surged forward from where Robin Hood had hovered.

Ishiki’s Shadow screamed. She reached for me with her huge, bony, arms.

Glass shattered all around us.

Loki hadn’t been targeting the Shadow. He had targeted the Treasure. He had exposed Futaba to her poisonous mother.

I took the opportunity to dart away, but I could feel the poison now. I had resisted for a long time, but it burned my lungs and drained away at my stamina.

Thanks to breaking down the greenhouse walls, I didn’t have to go too far for the effect to lessen. No gardeners or scientists greeted me. I think they were scared of Ishiki’s Shadow. Or perhaps it represented how she was never truly one of them.

I ducked behind one of the carts.

Ishiki’s Shadow held the cognitive Futaba in her arms, carefully lifting her above the low-hanging poison. I could hear her muttering something about it all being over soon.

I could feel blood seeping through my clothes. My blood.

Ishiki carefully set her daughter down amid a bed of flowers.

She then rose to her full height, balancing precariously on what almost looked like extremely long duclaws. 

“The greenhouse must be decontaminated.”

I stayed perfectly still, feeling Loki roiling within me. Robin Hood urged me to save the girl. Loki demanded I destroy the Shadow.

No reason I couldn’t try to do both.

Ishiki now actively dispersed the poison around her. I crawled along the ground, amid the maze of plants.

If I could get a good strike in, I had a chance.

She lowered.

A sudden buffett of wind threw me back. And there she was, towering over me. Her bony claws descended upon me.

Loki parried, holding her back with his flaming blade.

“You shall not harm her.”

“No, I won’t.” I gritted my teeth. “I’m going to save her.”

Loki’s black stripes spun out, shifting into the form of Robin Hood. For a moment, I thought her bony pincer would reach my throat.

Ishiki’s Shadow fell back, an arrow through her skull.

More arrows pierced her, seeking out what little flesh remained.

She sagged back, returning to her more human form. 

I staggered forward and Robin Hood once more became Loki.

She pleaded. Said she was all her daughter had.

I grabbed her face in my taloned hands.

She begged.

My claws pierced her skin.

“ _You_ took all I had. You gave me a gift only to harm me. You murdered children your daughter’s age.”

I expected her to justify her actions, but she just began sobbing. With her Shadow beaten down, and with Kuroda gone, I think she suddenly realized just how awful she’d been. She confronted her actions in me, and she realized what she’d done.

Not like I cared.

Her sobs just made me angrier.

And I pushed that anger out on her. In her. She screamed. I released her with her pain. With my pain.

And I walked over to Futaba. Sure enough, still a doll. Nevertheless, I lifted her and began to carry her out.

Ishiki’s pleading changed - from ‘ _don’t take me from her_ ’, to ‘ _don’t take her from me_ ’.

“You took Kara.”

I attempted to keep walking then, intent on leaving her to her despair. She lunged for me. One final, desperate, attempt to stop me from taking her treasure away.

Loki skewered her.

**NOW**

“I’m not entirely sure how I exited the Metaverse. I guess I just walked through the doors. It was pretty obvious when I did so, as the Futaba doll turned into a portrait of mother and daughter.”

Morgana let out a long held breath. “Her daughter really was her treasure.”

Akechi shrugged. “I guess. When I saw what it had turned into I simply tossed it aside. That photo is likely long buried in Tokyo’s rubbish.” 

“When I got out, the lab was on fire. I don’t know what happened to cause that. Perhaps it was part of Shido’s plan to steal the research. Or perhaps it resulted from the damage I caused. I just knew I had to get out of there.”

“You lived on the streets again,” surmised Akira.

Goro nodded. “Briefly, but no longer just the streets. I could see the distortions in reality and pull on them like a thread. I followed them and found Mementos quickly. It proved a good hideout. I trained there. It was during that time that I learned just how honest Shadows are. They readily admitted to things their human counterpart would never dream of confessing. It took some time, but I began earning decent money with tips to the police. Once I had a bit of a reputation I...” He trailed off.

“You approached Masayoshi Shido,” Sae finished.

He nodded. “I had the information he needed and presented my services as a detective, but he knew the truth. It turns out, Dr. Kuroda had already approached him and told him to wait. Dr. Kuroda patiently awaited my arrival, knowing I would eventually return to my original plan of approaching my father.”

“He’s the one who told me they had killed Ishiki. That her daughter thought she had committed suicide. I was furious they blamed the death on Futaba, but then he told me about why they could pull it off. Why it seemed reasonable. Why it was my fault. And, logically, I know plenty well how little people are willing to investigate a suicide when a child is involved.”

“Shido put me to work killing his rivals almost immediately. Dr. Kuroda studied my abilities. He’s the one who realized I could manipulate Shadows. That I could fill them with my rage and my pain. I realized then, that that was how I had defeated Ishiki’s Shadow.”

“When you went psychotic in the engine room,” mused Makoto, “you were really just unleashing you emotions, weren't you?”

Goro turned to Makoto. “It was always just me. I could fuel my rage, but it was always mine.”

“It’s not just rage, Akechi.” Akira spoke quietly, almost a whisper. “It’s your sorrow too. Your loneliness.”

“No.” Akechi smiled gently at him. “Not loneliness. Guilt, perhaps, but never loneliness. Kara’s soul, it’s still here.” He placed a hand over his heart. “Still trapped inside me. He is the little voice inside my head telling me to do the right thing. Telling me to do what heroes do. Telling me to be more like Robin Hood, a noble’s son who chose to stand up for the people in a corrupt world.”

Sae leaned forward, locking her fingers together to rest her chin and staring hard at Akechi. “And what does Goro Akechi want?” 

“I’m not sure. Every decision I make seems to only make things worse for me. Every person I care about, harmed because they know me.”

“That’s not true!”

All heads turned to Akira.

“I know you’re...and you did try to kill me, but…” Akira took a deep breath. “My life is better for having you in it, attempted murder and all. You taught me so much about justice, Akechi. About the difference between it and vengeance, and how similar they really are. How _personal_ justice can be. And how indifferent. I know it feels strange. That it sounds weird, but you are my justice. You are who I fight for. You and Kara.”

He stared at Akechi.

“I want to protect people who can’t fight back. To stop it before it gets to the point...to the point where they just give up. To ensure you don’t have to be alone. So that those who lash out against a cruel world don’t have to carry the burden alone. So they never have to lash out. Like you did.”

Sae leaned back in her seat. “There is no question as to the blood on your hands, not to mention the general harm to society you caused. Or, on a personal level, the harm caused to my reputation and livelihood.”

“I expect you to advise me to turn myself in,” admitted Akechi.

“To an extent. That said, given your story, I think you have a solid case for self-defense. At least at the beginning. Beyond that, given that your father called the shots, both your blood father and your guardian, you should be tried as a juvenile. And frankly, I believe you win an insanity plea.”

“I’m not insane.”

“I don’t know about that,” interjected Makoto. “I mean...you hallucinate, you hear voices in your head, and you don’t seem to have the greatest capacity for empathy.”

“Points taken,” Goro replied coldly. “Be that as it may, none of that is why I did what I did. Akira’s right. It was vengeance. Plain and simple.”

“It was a child lashing out at a world he didn’t understand,” corrected Sae. “That’s why I think you should be tried as a juvenile. Your motivations were childish.” 

Goro bristled.

“And,” Sae continued, “they were motivations which should never have existed. Your mother should never have been harassed for having you and a politician who used his power to rape women should never have been allowed to stay in power. Dr. Kuroda should never have gotten permission to adopt you. The orphanage which first experimented on you should never have been sold to a private individual. Frankly, none of this should have happened to you. Your actions may be your own, but you were created from society’s failure.”

Akira looked over to Sae. “Prison is one of those failures too. You know you’d never be allowed to defend him, and you know how twisted the system really is. If he turns himself in, it won’t be as kind as you want. And it won’t be fair.”

“I know that.”

“So do I.” Akechi grabbed Akira’s attention with his gaze. “There’s a group of Persona users that call themselves the Shadow Operatives. Well, used to. They’re technically disbanded, have been for a long time, but several individuals still work to stop Persona research. It still happens, and it still gets children killed.”

“One of them, not much older than me, approached and asked if I’d like to join. I would like to try and make amends using my abilities and ensuring it never happens again.”

“Is that what you want?” asked Akira.

Akechi nodded. “I believe it is the best compromise between my desires and Kara’s. And we are not the only ones who have been hurt. There are so many more. The other children at the orphanage for starters. And the other test subjects at the Department of Supernatural Individuality. Not to mention those who, like the Phantom Thieves, were ultimately punished for fighting back.”

He turned to Sae. “I know it’s not your justice, but will you accept it? You know Akira’s right. If I turn myself in, I will likely face the harshest penalty they can give. There are too many allies of Shido’s who would relish the chance. And the system is too rigged. You know that.”

“I do,” she admitted. “It is quite likely that you would face the death penalty, no matter how well we pleaded your case. Murder with the intent to disrupt society is about the worst crime you could commit.”

“Then I ask your permission, Sae, to do something valuable with my life. I will never be absolved of what I’ve done, no matter the punishment I receive. Let me at least earn some forgiveness. If not from you,” he looked around him, “if not from any of you, then at least from Kara? From myself?”

Sae closed her eyes in thought for a moment, speaking only once she had opened them once more. “Very well, but I insist on meeting these individuals. I need to know I’m leaving you in good hands. That you’ll do as you say, and that they won’t take advantage of your pain.”

“I agree.” Makoto smiled awkwardly at him. “I don’t trust you. I never did and I never will, but I believe you. You want to make amends and shoving you in prison doesn’t help anyone.”

“This should be a proper unanimous decision among the Phantom Thieves,” announced Morgana. “However, if these Shadow Operatives pass muster, then I think it’s a good idea. I’m curious to meet other Persona users too.”

Akira nodded. “Agreed.” He practically beamed at Akechi. “See if you can’t arrange a meeting between some of these Shadow Operatives and the Phantom Thieves. We’ll go from there.”

Goro smiled. Really, truly smiled. “Thank you. I promise you, I won’t give you reason to regret this.”

Makoto grinned at him. “Don’t worry. If you do, we’ll just have to kick your ass again.”

“Definitely,” added Morgana.

Akira just smiled at him, but Goro got the message loud and clear. If there needed to be a rematch, there would be.

And honestly? Knowing the Phantom Thieves had his back, and would kick his butt if he strayed too far, felt incredibly comforting.

He wasn’t alone. He didn’t have to make every decision on his own. And if he strayed there were people who would, with extreme force, shove him back on the right path.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my artists (@kb_phantom and @hellohelss) and to cunning_capra for looking over my work and to my friend Stoona for giving it a last minute once-over.


End file.
